State Forensic Lab Digging Out Of Hole

COMMENTARY

The appointment of Guy Vallaro, the director of the Massachusetts State Police forensic laboratory, as director of Connecticut's forensic laboratory is the capstone of the 16-month overhaul of the troubled lab. The appointment of a nationally recognized forensic scientist who is also an experienced manager promises to restore the lab to the preeminent position it once enjoyed under Henry Lee.

The crisis at the lab came to light in early 2011 when an accreditation review revealed a backlog of 3,900 DNA cases that, given current staffing, would require more than three years to process, a backlog of 1,800 firearms cases that would require four years to process and more than 200 rape kits that would take six months to process, far longer than the recommended 30 days.

The backlogs were symptoms of a deeper problem. The review and two subsequent audits raised concerns about the supervision of the lab, the training of its staff, its control of evidence, the quality of some of its tests and validation procedures, the security of its data, and the quality of its reporting. The lab lost its accreditation in August 2011.

Perhaps the most serious consequence, in addition to calling into question the reliability and validity of the lab's work, was the prohibition from entering offender profiles and forensic profiles obtained from crime scenes into the FBI-administered Combined DNA Index System (known as CODIS) of state and federal DNA databases.

The crisis was the predictable result of an organizational structure that, because of perpetual underfunding and the lab's location within the state police hierarchy, was seriously understaffed, both in terms of managers and scientists. It was unable to process efficiently the greatly increased flow of work coming into the lab, an inflow fueled in particular by the growing recognition of the authoritative role DNA can play in an investigation.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy appointed a 17-member working group, headed by Michael Lawlor, the undersecretary of the Office of Policy Management for criminal justice policy and planning, to examine all aspects of the lab's operation.

One of the first things the group did was establish priorities among types of crimes in the processing of incoming cases. In recent years, the lab typically received evidence from 4,000 cases annually, which frequently had many pieces of evidence to be analyzed and almost half of which involved misdemeanors.

The group also established protocols limiting the number of pieces of evidence that could be submitted with each case depending on the type of crime. As a result, the number of submissions dropped by more than 40 percent this year.

The lab was short some 35 people. Its DNA unit was severely understaffed and half of its existing positions were temporary ones funded by grants. In February, the working group recommended and the governor's 2013 budget proposed creation of 48 new positions in the lab — 15 involving technicians on short-term grants, 19 new staff to be hired this year and 14 more to be hired next year.

To strengthen the management of the lab and its ability to process its work more efficiently, the group recommended that it be independent and not, as it had been since its founding, embedded in the administrative hierarchy of the state police. While remaining within the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (formerly the Department of Public Safety), the lab now reports directly to Commissioner Reuben Bradford rather than through the state police hierarchy.

The prompt and comprehensive response to the crisis enabled the lab to regain its accreditation after a lapse of six months.

There is still much work to be done in reducing the backlog of evidence from crime scenes across the state awaiting DNA analysis. But with its staff replenished, its focus concentrated on the most important and urgent criminal matters, its new protocols establishing priorities and rules for case management, its accreditation restored, its independence established, and a new director coming onboard on Dec. 28, the lab is well positioned to once again deliver top-quality forensic analysis in a timely manner.

David R. Cameron is a professor of political science at Yale University.